In a known appliance, such as a refrigerator, an icemaker delivers ice through an opening in a door of the refrigerator. Such a known refrigerator has a freezer section to the side of a fresh food section. This type of refrigerator is often referred to as a “side-by-side” refrigerator. In the side-by-side refrigerator, the icemaker delivers ice through the door of the freezer section. In this arrangement, ice is formed by freezing water with cold air in the freezer section, the air being made cold by a cooling system that includes an evaporator.
Another known refrigerator includes a bottom freezer section disposed below a top fresh food section. This type of refrigerator is often referred to as a “bottom freezer” or “bottom mount freezer” refrigerator. In this arrangement, convenience necessitates that the icemaker deliver ice through the opening in the door of the fresh food section, rather than the freezer section. However, the cool air in the fresh food section is generally not cold enough to freeze water to form ice.
In the bottom freezer refrigerator, it is known to pump cold air, which is cooled by the evaporator of the cooling system, within an interior channel of the door of the fresh food section to the icemaker.
These prior art arrangements suffer from numerous disadvantages. For example, complicated air ducts are required within the interior of the door for the cold air to flow to the icemaker. Further, ice is made at a relatively slow rate, due to limitations the storage volume for the ice and/or temperature of cold air that can be pumped within the interior of the door of the fresh food section. Another disadvantage is that pumping the cold air to the fresh food compartment during ice production reduces the temperature of the fresh food compartment below the set point.
Further, when ice is made and stored in the fresh food compartment of the refrigerator, continued cooling of the ice bucket is required to prevent melting of the ice. The melting of the stored ice is particularly a problem when the user turns off the icemaker. Prior art devices use one of two methods to manage stored ice when the icemaker is turned off.
One method eliminates cooling flow to the icemaker. This method has the benefit of reducing energy consumption. However, without cooling flow, the ice melts. The melted ice is typically allowed to drain into the drain pan of the refrigerator for evaporation. However, if a significant volume of ice was in the ice bucket the drain pan overflows onto the floor.
The second method used to manage stored ice when the icemaker is turned off is to continue to cool the ice bucket. This method eliminates the melting of the ice and ensuing mess. However this method continues to expend energy cooling the ice bucket even if there is no ice present.